Aerial refueling allows extending the flight range of those aircrafts that have been specifically equipped for carrying it out. The in-flight refueling process involves the transfer of fuel from a tanker aircraft to another aircraft to be refueled, the receiver aircraft.
Currently, one of the most used refueling system type is hose-and-drogue system. The hose-and-drogue system requires of a flexible hose having an end attached to a drogue in the tanker aircraft, and a probe to be engaged in the receiver aircraft. The drogue is a funnel shaped device provided with an aerial refueling coupling, usually fitted with vanes and a canopy at its free end to stabilize its flight, once the hose has been deployed from the tanker aircraft for the refueling.
The aerial refueling coupling has some different functions such as to stabilize the hose movements, to adequate the fuel pressure within acceptable values and/or to ensure the proper latching of the probe of the receiver aircraft.
Regarding these functions, U.S. Pat. No. 7,137,598 B2 describes the use of a system and method that stabilizes hose movements since detecting slack or impeding oscillations in a portion of the elongate hose. Then, the disclosure herein prevents potentially dangerous changes in disposition that may occur in probe and drogue in-flight refueling system components, such as an elongate hose trailing aft and below a first aircraft. For that, the disclosure herein generates a signal to be transmitted to the retracting device, carried by the tanker aircraft, and responsible for extending and retracting the hose. However, the disclosure herein focuses only on the tanker aircraft, and particularly, on the hose behavior.
It is also known by U.S. Pat. No. 6,375,123 B1 a refueling drogue for rearward deployment from a tanker aircraft into an air stream that includes a fuel valve for receiving fuel from the tanker aircraft and controlling a flow of the fuel and a coupling attached to the fuel valve for receiving fuel from the fuel valve. Again, the disclosure herein focuses only on the tanker and does not provide any measures that allow analyzing and controlling and drogue refueling functionality.
Also, the document EP 2607237 A1 describes a latching detection and indication system for in-flight refueling operations, wherein the aerial refueling coupling and the probe comprises cooperating latching means that detect one positioning state between three possible states, a non-latched state, an intermediate latching state and a latched state. The system informs the pilot of the receiver aircraft and/or the crew of the tanker aircraft if a proper latching has taken placed to take the required corrective actions that lead to achieve a proper connection. However, the system does not stores the generated information that enables issuing a tanker-receiver pair qualification, or/and a hose-and-drogue certification.
Therefore, it has been detected the need in the aeronautical industry, of a new aerial refueling coupling which is capable of performing on board physical and operational parameter measuring and recording, to provide complete and reliable measures during the in-flight refueling operation. Likewise, it has been detected a need of an aerial refueling coupling that allows providing all data information required for tanker-receiver pairs qualifications and hose-and-drogue certifications.